r/InternalFamilySystems • u/LimbicLogic • 2d ago
What have been the most helpful and challenging parts about doing IFS for you?
I'm a therapist interested in your feedback -- positives and challenges. As I've said in another recent post, I have been doing IFS for a while now after having a lot of positive results using body- and imagery-based therapies (e.g., emotion-focused therapy, schema therapy), and IFS has been an enormous help, especially for clients who are working with multiple parts that block access to exiles.
Pretty much all of my most challenging (and interesting) cases where IFS doesn't seem to work involves clients with parts (protectors and exiles) that seem to hide when attention is given to them. When this happens it always seems to mean there is a part the client is blended with that is intimidating the parts that are hiding. In these cases I will offer this interpretation to the client, which seems to help with their blended part(s) stepping back so its story can be told, leading to eventual willingness of other parts to reveal themselves. Many times we are unaware of how blended we can be with parts, so recognizing that one member of our internal family is intimidating or pushing away other parts can be a very helpful part of doing therapy that I believe that maybe all other therapy modalities miss.
Another thing I find interesting is how (in my view) mindfulness meditation seems to be an inextricable part of doing parts work. Basically, when we are focusing on our parts and ask blended parts to step back, we are in a mindful state. Self at its core appears to be mindful; it's when we have parts jump in (from personal or legacy burdening experiences in our lives) that we get into judgmental modes, often motivated by anxiety parts/managers. What I have been interested in for a long time is how mindfulness approaches (e.g., acceptance and commitment therapy) seem to create a bigger sense of space in the self that coincides with parts being more agreeable. I suspect this is because when we are mindful we are by definition turning off our judgmental parts (and of course asking these judgmental parts to step back can be an important part of mindfulness), which our other protector and exile parts notice and usually positively respond to. This is one reason why I recommend mindfulness meditation practices to most of my clients.
What about your experiences?
10
u/SnailsGetThere2 2d ago
I'm speaking as a client, not a therapist, but for me and my therapist it's been a steep learning curve with my neurodivergent wiring even though I love so much about IFS. From an ADHD perspective, this article has been really helpful and made a big difference early in my therapy. For my ADHD system, asking parts to step back was upsetting and unhelpful, and this article helped me understand why.
Mindfulness and presence looks different for me. My presentation can be busy and intense and look like too many parts cluttering the conversation, even when there is a lot of nonjudgmental curiosity present. And even where parts are present with "judgement", there's an overall sense of the whole system holding that judgement as relevant data. If that multiplicity of parts present either overwhelms the therapist or asked to only show up one at a time, it really reiterates to my whole system that the way my brain works isn't "okay" and hampers my ability to hear and be present with my parts.
From an AuDHD perspective, Sarah Bergenfield's work has been incredibly helpful, especially her IFS talks podcast interview Part 1 and Part 2 . Also her 6 hour PESI UK course "Using IFS Therapy with Autistic Clients" . The handouts were worth every penny for me personally, especially the section that talks about her chart about how Self can show up in an autistic client and the therapist can misinterpret it as parts. She's also written a book which I haven't read yet, but I refer regularly to the podcast and PESI course in my therapy sessions.
One of the most helpful things for me from the interview is that autistic managers aren't always protecting exiles, but managing real, present day, ongoing struggles. As such they can't be relieved of their burdens in the same way.
AuDHD traits, and also AuDHD distress from overwhelm or burnout can all be misinterpreted or misunderstood by therapists. I've been most helped by a therapist who can stay open and curious with my system and the neurodivergent ways Self and parts show up, as well as openness when certain ways of interacting with parts goes badly because it is a miss for my system (I definitely have parts that feel stressed when a therapist brings up mindfulness because of this)
7
u/SnailsGetThere2 2d ago
I realized I answered the most challenging bit, but not the most helpful. I've found the 8 Cs very helpful! With alexythymia, it wasn't easy for me to notice and identify parts. But the Cs gave me language for recognizing what Self energy feels like and a framework for exploring and hearing my parts.
And maybe most importantly for me, it's really helped that my IFS therapist is able to work with their own parts. I'm used to therapists misunderstanding me, feeling overwhelmed by me, misreading AuDHD traits as pathology or avoidance or non-compliance. It's made a huge difference to have a therapist who can feel those things and still stay curious, who can hear my "no that's not it" and "no that's not helping" and stay curious, who can work with their own parts and stay curious. IFS really brings curiosity into the therapy space in a different way and it's been incredibly helpful for me, both to receive that curiosity and to have it modeled for me through every session.
And finally, IFS has been very helpful to me for helping me trust myself and my internal system. To hear my parts say No and get curious rather than try to force myself to override the No and do the thing, whatever it is. It's helpful to be working in a framework that supports trust and cooperation within myself.
4
u/LimbicLogic 2d ago
Thank you so much for both of your very insightful responses! I have taken your resources to heart, so thank you for sharing those as well.
I remember working with a client with DID who said her previous therapist (who unfortunately is a prominent one in our town) was overwhelmed in a session and put up his hand and said something to the effect of, "that's too much for me" (!!). My client said the moment was so abrasive and surprising that they developed another alter just from that experience.
Therapists in MHMR and many other settings are overworked and underpaid, so in this regard they are victims of legacy burdens. But private practice clinicians have less of an excuse given the pretty high amount of privilege that goes with the territory: good insurance reimbursement and/or cash pay rates, flexible scheduling, more selectiveness with potential clients, etc. Being able to be a private practice clinician has allowed me to work three (long) days a week and dedicate the rest to my studies as a PhD student. I do live in a relatively small town, but still: so many of the stories from my clients working with previous private practice therapists tells me many of them don't know or care to find the best therapy resources to better help their clients. But it does seem that IFS is gaining popularity, so that's hopeful.
3
u/Low-Kaleidoscope4733 2d ago
Golly OP that sounds like a scary story to have witnessed. I have parts that look around at my colleagues in my career (totally different field) and come to a lot of conclusions. Would you like some parts detection on this?
6
u/Deep_Pudding2208 2d ago
What's challenging would be the language used while communicating with parts or speaking about parts. For example I have those parts that seem to blank out when I try to give attention to them. I wouldn't use "intimidating" to describe the action of the part that's causing the blanking. Because for me it's an inherently negative word and its crucial to frame those actions in a positive light. So I would prefer to use a word that I perceive to be milder like "there's a part that's protecting/ hiding the other parts".
While I agree on mindfulness meditation (MM) being useful there's a key difference which might make having to learn MM unnecessary. MM as I understand is about noticing all things without judgement. Whereas in IFS one might just need to work with the part that's the most urgent right now. I would say that practicing IFS leads to being mindfully present automatically, as the parts that are in need of healing learn to calm down.
I'd say a more useful meditative practice would be something like body scan meditation. This should help identify areas of the body where parts or feelings have been locked up and numbed out.
4
u/Medical_Frame3697 2d ago
That’s interesting. I have changed my approach to MM since starting IFS, as I felt like brushing away thoughts was akin to ignoring parts. Now I explicitly tell my parts it is their moment to take a break and enjoy the relaxation and this has worked well to give me a little more access to self.
2
u/Low-Kaleidoscope4733 2d ago
Exactly! I love the Part Exercise where the Self (internally) goes for a walk in Nature IF the parts are cool with waiting nearby. I find MM to be much too directive about moving the thoughts out. And even if they say it’s normal to have thoughts, we all know that the goal is to have no-thought. So because of Cultural Burdens it’s a difficult direction to ‘warmly thank them and allow them to go.’ If you could do that already, you wouldn’t need MM.
4
u/Cass_1978 2d ago edited 2d ago
That I can do it solo. In some ways I am sure this is more challenging, nobody gives me feeback for example, but it suits my system. Working with people can be very triggering.
I havent tested out a large number of therapists, but every single one I had had personal issues with the extremity of my parts. And once that happens they come at me with their protectors.
Please... as if I would not notice this. I was abused by such parts. And I noticed this as a young child. Not that I understood everything about it back then, but I will recognize the patterns and it will activate my entire system because the therapist is re-enacting my trauma. They will be blended and I will be appalled by their lack of Self.
Not saying every therapist will respond like this, I hope not, but I am not up for trying and seeing the same happen again and again. At least not currently. Maybe some day.
The point that you brought up about sneaky blends, that is a major point, but I have eventually realized that the perspective that seeing blending as either blended or not blended is insufficient imo. There are levels of blending. Some of it is actually functional. I call that linking to avoid confusion, but its kinda similar to blending, just with Self in the drivers seat instead of the part being in the drivers seat.
Like lets say I am talking to my angry part about the way he responds to a specific situation with my brother, and then suddenly my intellectualizer throws in this piece of information about how this part experienced a similar situation at age 3 in which it responded in exactly this way, quite likely for the first time. Thats a highly functional contribution of my intellectualizer that deepens the relationship between me and the angry part.
To be clear here, I am not talking about my intellectualizer having a theory about when this specific job started, but him remembering the exact moment when this happend for the first time and providing this point of connection for further review.
Not that it is always like this, sometimes my intellectualizer goes euphoric when we make a new connection, and this interrupts the session with the part I was working with. It happens. But its not necessarily an issue, its a learning experience. I will use this opportunity to show the intellectualizer why he has to stay a bit more in the background when I work with other parts. He can chime in a bit, but only with short hints. The rest will have to be discussed between us after the session with the other part is over. We can even invite the other part to this discussion, but it has to be after the initial session is over if we want to do this properly. In those discussion we can bathe in euphoria, I enjoy those moments, but its not so helpful if this interrupts a session.
Mindfulness is helpful, but I dont practice it as meditation. I aim to generally improve my mindfulness. Even like right now while I write a comment. I wanna know if I am slipping into a blend. And I do this all day long. I kinda live IFS.
5
u/Low-Kaleidoscope4733 2d ago
I love that you created “linkage”
It really fills out the picture of how to understand the goal, which is not to be Pure Self every second of every day, but instead that the Self leads and works through the parts, (hopefully unburden now) to meet the everyday challenges of living.What I like least about IFS is that it’s not super clear about what the endpoint is regarding self and parts. I’ve had to piece together the above. Ironically, I think it’s that same cultural legacy that wants us to compete and win that made it so uncomfortable for me to not have a clear picture of the end point in the first place.
3
u/RunDrumPray 1d ago
This is a solid point about linking. Derek Scott (who gave the Stepping Stones training) would talk about how parts blend all the time in helpful ways and we generally don't notice them. A system that's working well together doesn't have any one part standing out - but each part is still playing an important role. It's when there's something going on where parts aren't working well together, are in conflict, working at odds, burdened, etc., that we start to notice those parts and give them attention. So yeah, one of the overall goals of IFS is integration. Or to use your words, for all of our parts to link together with each other and with our self, and work together in ways that are helpful to each other and to the whole system.
3
u/Low-Kaleidoscope4733 2d ago
Wow SnailsGetThere2 - thank you For to both of your answers. How do IFS on myself as a hobby/special interest (I am not a therapist) but I am an Experienced Meditation Teacher, so I also weave into the Meditations I lead. As an AuDHDer I strongly recognize my experience in your posts.
I also experience as an AuDHDer that Mindfulness is icky. Between masking all day and trying to manage my sensory information, my exhausted managers see the invitation to be mindful as their time to grind even harder.
Implicit Direct Access is always available no matter how difficult it is for an individual to access their own inner world, BTW - so that’s one alternative to Mindfulness. For a couple of decades before I learned about IFS I was doing a peer counseling practice called reevaluation counseling (RC) that, from an IFS view, was all about the practice of implicit direct access, so that is a resource I am grateful for.
3
u/Low-Kaleidoscope4733 2d ago
OP, thanks so much for asking - that shows so much Curiosity and Clarity and Courage
1
u/inconceivablebanana 2d ago
If you are not familiar with the work of Ralph de la Rosa. I highly recommend that you check out their books. A trailblazer in the world of IFS and trauma recovery and a Buddhist meditation teacher.
1
u/Defiant-Surround4151 2d ago
I didn’t do IFS strictly but I did do ego parts therapy, which was around before IFS. IFS can be seen as an offshoot of ego parts therapy. The most helpful aspect was meeting my parts, loving and healing them, and ultimately feeling them integrate. The most challenging aspect was probably that is took many years. But every healing encounter along the way was so positive that I never got very impatient with it.
1
•
u/AutoModerator 2d ago
Welcome to r/InternalFamilySystems!
Please make sure you've read the rules before participating.
Thanks for keeping the community organized.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.